> Google and Amazon say the payment options aren’t new. Google said Amazon was among a few companies that had been able to offer non-Google payment options for their existing customers, under a test program.
"It's not a special deal. It's just that only a few companies can benefit from it."
Who are they kidding, seriously?
> Amazon doesn’t seem to be paying Google a fee
"Test program", what a bunch of corporate shitspeak.
It's simply that Amazon is one of the few companies that can get away with not paying Google anything. Amazon is the big dog in this context.
If Google were to cut off Amazon from search results, people would just do all their shopping (and searches) directly on Amazon and cut Google out of the process entirely, and Google would lose hundreds of millions in ad revenue for the ads it show sin Amazon-related google searches. Amazon could even promote competitors to Google on their website just for the hell of it (or more likely in exchange for $$$ or stock), and Google would start seeing material drops in usage (material meaning large enough for investors to care about).
https://apnews.com/article/washington-post-bezos-opinion-tru...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2024/10/25/washin...
"They're not confessing. They're bragging."
-- The Big Short
Not accurate, at least for Kobo. They accepted Google's billing system, so buying from the Kobo app on Android hooks into your Google Wallet billing method and works without an issue.
It does mean you can't use Kobo gift cards towards purchases made on your phone, but you can always pop onto the website to do that.
I'm actually really glad that Kobo just did that, even if Google is taking a ridiculous cut. Anecdotally I'm buying way more impulse books on Kobo (i.e. a book on sale for $2.99 or less) since they got the app working with Google Wallet.
It's very little effort for doing your part in fighting the oligopoly.
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...
If Google insisted on being an option in the app it would be relatively fine. Users who prefer Googles payment system could chose it, but Google doesn't want users to have that choice.
Even when I buy books from Kobo, I never stored my credit card with them. I always bought gift cards and loaded the balance onto my account. That would occasionally get cumbersome, since the only vendor for those cards in the US used to be Wal-Mart, until they discontinued their relationship. Now I think Kobo might sell them directly out of Amazon.com--but either way, for the odd $2 and $3 purchases that I do on impulse buys (because a book may be on sale), just having it go through Google Wallet is much easier.
Though I've never had the above happen. I've had a few times where my number was compromised but the bank found out and gave me a new card before whoever got the number was able to use it.
You can proactively decide when a card will expire and how much it can be billed ("Sure, NY Times, I'll take a subscription for the trial offer of $4 a month, so let's make sure this card only allows a charge of $4 every month and/or expires when that offer expires.")
Citation needed!
In 2014 I worked for a small, unimportant ecommerce retailer. We migrated at around that time to storing only a token, using our payment processor (Braintree at the time) - and no longer kept any card numbers in our database whatsoever. If someone had dumped our 'credit_cards' table after that migration, they'd have nothing but useless garbage (the token could only be used by our own merchant account). I think even Braintree didn't need to store the card number itself either, but I'm not so sure of their internals.
Storing a payment card number in your database is considered an incredibly bad practice, is not PCI compliant, and probably violates other important "compliance" things you have to regularly certify as well.
Google having my payment info is no worry at all to me. Google is on a very short list of companies whose defense against hacking and social engineering attacks I trust.
Google seeing every one of my purchases? Not a fan. I don't think that's the argument you're making here, though.
So, an article entirely built on speculation.
Speculations refuted by Google: "Google said Amazon doesn’t have a special deal.".
What's more likely is that the share of users who buy books exclusively from the mobile Kindle app is extremely low, and that therefore it's worth selling at a loss or no profit for Amazon, to retain the customer experience.
It's also likely that Amazon doesn't have a special deal with Google, but has a special deal with book publishers, which means it's able to turn a profit even with the 30% app store cut.
Basically priming a generation against libraries.
And then the ebook readers have these invented gripes why paper books no longer work for them and they must engage with the walled garden system in order to read. Some of it is truly pedantic stuff like “book too heavy.”
You have left off the abusive terms under which the ebooks are leased to the libraries.
https://pressbooks.openeducationalberta.ca/ciicm/chapter/pub...
The above source fits with what ChatGPT told me (the chatgpt info is otherwise unverified):
https://chatgpt.com/share/682cffab-65b4-8002-8561-1b5842dc25...
Where are you getting inventing gripes from? Change font style and size is a major factor for many people along with weight. I started reading way more when I could use a ereader instead of print books.
bookofjoe•3d ago
latein•3d ago